Water Night

Water Night

Water Night is an annual event supporting stronger action on climate change and water awareness.

We ask individuals and households to turn off all non-essential taps from 5-10pm with the aim to increase water awareness and leading to long term behavioural change

Water Night is a nationwide event established to raise awareness of water use in Australia. Research conducted by The Water Conservancy shows Australia’s water literacy is very low and so is the perceived value of tap water.

All life on earth relies on water to survive yet only 42% of Australians consider tap water to be precious. Water Night improves water literacy and water awareness helping us all value water more, leading to long term behavioural change.

Participation in Water Night has been shown to increase water literacy, helping people value tap water more and in turn use it wisely.


Sign up here!

Highlights

  • The inaugral Water Night (2020) was a great success with as much as a 10% increase in water literacy and at least a 23% improvement in their knowledge of water used at home.
  • 3,417 households registered to participate year - 6.3K adults and 2.1k children pledged not to use their taps on Water Night.
  • The results to the survey one week after Water Night reported a 10% reduction in daily tap touches, proving the hypothesis that Water Night would highlight participants’ use of their taps so that they would become more mindful and reduce their use.
  • In 2021, registrations increased in almost every state. Water literacy increased by 14%.

What are people saying about Water Night

“It has been really great to support Water Night for the past two years. We are always looking for innovative ways to talk about water with our community”

Louise Cadell, Water Sustainability Officer Tamworth Regional Council

“It was an amazing experience, but it’s honestly very difficult, not to turn on the tap. As a precaution as a household of 2, we definitely put aside too many amounts of water (4 basins) -1 bucket would have been quite enough. On 2 occasions we thoughtlessly, and due to habit, flushed our toilets twice. The exercise certainly heightened our awareness to use less water, or at least think twice before turning on the tap! Cheers”

Water Night participant